Girl, 5, unable to walk and covered in rash after being bitten by a false widow spider
A five-year-old girl was left unable to walk after a bite from ‘Britain’s most dangerous spider’ left her covered ‘literally head to toe’ in rashes.
Lily Hodgson, 5, was unaware she’d been bitten when she told her mum that her ankle was in pain and it hurt to walk.
But by bedtime her face was itching too, so her parents, thinking it was an allergic reaction, gave her antihistamines.
Later that night though, her mum Genna Hunt awoke with a shock to find her daughter covered in rashes.
She said: ‘I woke at 3am as Lily felt hot next to me. I put the light on and nearly screamed at her poor face.
‘I woke her up and she was covered in this strange rash literally head to toe.
‘The worst it got was when the itchy rash was in her hair and all the way down to her toes, which was 24 hours later.
‘Her ankle did hurt the next day and she did refuse to walk on it.’
Genna, 34, took Lily to their local pharmacy in Eastleigh, Hampshire the next morning to seek professional help.
Miss Hunt said: ‘I just presumed it was a food allergy and would go away shortly.
‘The pharmacist took us into a little side room and had a look, and asked some questions.
‘I did mention her ankle hurt – by this point she wasn’t walking on it, but it wasn’t swollen.
‘He said he suspected it was a bite reaction rather than a food allergy and that he would like her to be seen by a GP urgently.’
Genna continued: ‘We were taken into a room with an on-call paramedic who covers at the practice.
‘He got out a magnifying glass and said ‘yep it’s a false widow spider bite.’ He said he hadn’t seen many cases where they had a reaction like Lily’s before.’
The noble false widow is ‘widely regarded as the most dangerous spider breeding in Britain,’ according to a 2020 paper by Clive Hambler, an Oxford University zoologist.
Known as Steatoda nobilis, they’re not native to Britain and are thought to have arrived from the Canary Islands in banana boxes in the late 1800s before slowly spreading northwards.
‘We have no idea when she was bitten or what she was doing at the time,’ said Genna.
‘That day she had been at my parents playing indoors, walked the three-minute walk home to ours, and then played indoors at our house.’
She continued: ‘Lily was already on antibiotics and antihistamines for tonsillitis and ear infections, so we were told to keep up with that as that is what he would have prescribed anyway.
‘I do wonder what the reaction would have been like had Lily not already been on antibiotics and antihistamines. Would it have been a lot worse?’
Despite the itchiness and some discomfort walking, brave Lily has coped well.
Her rashes cleared up after four days and she’s mostly disappointed that her bite didn’t bring her superpowers ‘like Spider-Man’.
But the experience has made Miss Hunt vigilant against false widows, and she’s speaking up to warn others.
She said: ‘I’m now extra paranoid of any spiders in the house. Lily has been told to come get us if she sees any spider in her room and to not pick any of them up.
Genna added: ‘Honestly if you have any type of rash, especially one like Lily’s, then please get it looked at.
‘Pharmacists are trained in rashes and they are available to see by just popping into a pharmacy and asking to see them.’
Despite their bad reputation, false widows are unlikely to attack unless provoked or trapped between clothes and skin.
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